In an optical communication system, it is generally necessary to couple an optical fiber to an opto-electronic transmitter, receiver or transceiver device and to, in turn, couple the device to an electronic system such as a switching system or processing system. These connections can be facilitated by modularizing the transceiver device. Such optical transceiver modules include a housing in which are mounted opto-electronic elements, optical elements, and electronic elements, such as one or more light sources (e.g., lasers), light sensors (e.g., photodiodes), lenses and other optics, digital signal driver and receiver circuits, etc. In addition, a transceiver module typically includes an optical connector that can be coupled to a mating connector at the end of a fiber-optic cable.
Various optical transceiver module configurations are known. For example, a configuration commonly referred to as “Small Form Factor Pluggable” or SFP refers to a transceiver module having an elongated housing with a rectangular cross-sectional shape, where the rear of the module has an electrical connector that plugs into a bay of a front-panel cage, and the front of the module has an optical connector that accepts an optical fiber plug. Another module configuration, for example, is commonly referred to as “mid-plane” mounting. A mid-plane mountable transceiver module includes an electrical connector, such as a Landing Grid Array (LGA) or a MEGARRAY™, which are mountable on the surface of a printed circuit board. Mid-plane mountable transceiver modules include “parallel” transceivers that transmit and receive multiple optical signals in parallel, using arrays of light sources and light sensors.
One type of mid-plane mountable transceiver module system includes a transceiver and an optical connector that attaches to the transceiver module. The transceiver module includes an opto-electronic system that transmits and receives optical signals (i.e., beams) in a direction normal to the PCB on which the transceiver module is mounted. The optical connector interfaces with or connects to the top of the transceiver module. The optical connector includes reflective optics that redirect parallel optical signals emitted by the transceiver module into the ends of some of the optical fibers of a ribbon cable and redirect parallel optical signals emitted from the ends of others of the ribbon cable optical fibers into the transceiver module.
Manufacturing the above-referenced type of mid-plane mountable optical transceiver can present various challenges. Among such challenges are providing economical manufacturing methods while ensuring that the ribbon cable optical fibers are precisely aligned with the reflective optics in the optical connector. It would be desirable to provide an improved optical connector for such a transceiver module and a method for making the optical connector.